Stream of Consciousness: Charting the Sonic Orbit of eaJ

At the time I sat down with him, talking about his recent release “right where you left me”, Jae Hyung Park—eaJ to his throngs of global supporters—is a man in waiting.

Masked underneath the bop that is his music, evident in his pumped-up alt-pop body of work, eaJ wrote a sad but hopeful love letter of someone “waiting for this person to come back after a journey to self-discovery”.

Discussing his career trajectory is almost like a mirror into the man eaJ is. He is bubbly and warm, with a young, school boy charm, but a depth, eloquence, and wisdom easily reflected in how he speaks, that seeps through the enchanting lyricism he employs in his aural adventures.

Looking at his sonic evolution, though, just a couple of years young into a solo career after a departure from his previous band, growing a following on his Twitch streams, then ultimately casting a wide net of followers on social media, with close to a million monthly listeners on Spotify alone, pocketing hits like “Car Crash” and “pacman”, it goes without saying that eaJ’s musical journey is a product of self-discovery.

“In the beginning I felt like it was definitely a difficult journey. With that point aside, I already knew that it was going to be hard. I left for various reasons but one of the bigger ones is that I just kind of didn’t know what I wanted to do anymore,” eaJ quickly agrees when talking about a turning point in his artistry, with a decision to leave a then-six-man South Korean rock band he was debuted in, Day6.

“I was always told, ‘This is your reference. This is what you want to do. This is the kind of songs we need’. [We’d] have song camp for a couple of weeks and we would put up an EP and I just didn’t understand it. In my heart, I tried to ignore that for a long time. I just didn’t feel like a person.”

Following a hiatus to bookend his six-year run with the band that propelled him a spot in the Billboard’s Top World Album Chart and seven albums tucked nicely under his belt, he would then make a reintroduction online with what he would dub as the “eaJ project”, a personal aural journey made public where he would put out self-written songs in Soundcloud and YouTube.

“I have much respect for the boys and I do miss working with them from time to time. Being a separate independent artist is a bit of a lonely journey and I do miss the companionship sometimes but I don’t miss the things that came with it,” he opens up about the transition to a solo career.

“Especially after seeing the trajectory and the path that my music has taken—even seeing their latest EP. I love the music, but I think it was probably for the better that I did leave so that they can develop that sound and I can develop mine.”

The bittersweet realization, to eaJ, is no sob story but an impetus to greater, grander heights. Opening the world to his path to rediscovery, on his own music and his own stamp as an independent artist, he would soon see success in bringing a musicality that’s engineered for and by him directed to those who continue to enjoy listening to his work.

“Especially after I left the band, I kind of tiptoed around anything that kind of resembles Day6’s discography just because one, I was a part of creating a lot of the music and two, I just didn’t want to step into any toes and make them feel uncomfortable so I stayed in the lane of R&B, pop ballads, alt-pop, which is what I consider myself right now.”

He furthers, “I am a firm believer of pop music—easily digestible top lines and melodies under progressive backing instrumentals and production. alt pop instrumentals over a pop top line.”

He goes back discussing his latest release, “I think the best representation of eaJ right now and what eaJ loves and listens to, likes to make and has joy making in the studio setting, is ‘right where you left me’.”

With “right where you left me”, eaJ talks of a “flipped perspective”—of someone hopeful and charged with love, who is patiently waiting for the person’s return. This, to him, is a welcome digression from recent releases where “mad” talked about overcoming grief, “friendly fire” on the inner trappings of a tumultuous relationship. For this, he enlisted the help of Indonesian singer-songwriter Hindia, whom he opens was made possible by a DM on social media.

Even as he has found wings, treading his path and exploring the vast expanse of his artistry on his own, the 31-year-old maestro and his story is one that is evidently a triumph in collaborations. In the past he has worked seamlessly with the creative genius of the likes of Vaultboy, schld, Seori, among others. By the time this story goes live, his collaboration with Salem Ilese, in a song that narrates the ‘turmoil of love and heartbreak’.

He discloses, “I’m in an era of my life where I’m trying to learn and soak as much creativity and ability and technique as possible. I have been collaborating with a lot of people as of late. it’s hard to dial in who I want (and would end up) to collaborate with specifically just because I listen to a very wide range of music, going from pop hitmakers to Salem Ilese, who was featured in my upcoming song ‘Burn’, or it goes all the way to people who I took creativity and ideas from like brakence who does hyper pop.” He continues, “It’s hard to specify exactly the people I want to work with ‘cause I think I really respect talented and driven and creative people. To anyone who meets those thresholds for me, I would love to work with.”

While surrounding himself and growing in skills and artistry with creative co-conspirators, through the years, eaJ has since made it known that his songwriting process is, at its core, one that he goes into with this newfound sense of self front and center in his work. He narrates, “I was having a conversation with someone. I picked it off from when they were saying it. they say that when they’re writing music or when they’re writing, there’s a stream that comes and drops things off and gives you melodies and words that pops into your head.” He continues, “I had this conversation and we both came into the conclusion that you have to be open to this stream and allow it to work. So, the ideas and the creativity definitely come from that. However, the hardest for me for sure has been [the fact that I] had spent 10 years being told exactly what to make and I think the biggest struggle for me for a long time is finding what I wanted to make but I think I figured that out.”

If there’s anything that he has learned from his years in a band to his years bringing his audience to his musical journey and rediscovery of his sound in real time on his streams, it is that eaJ is an amalgam of experiences and stories that is consistently evolving. With a number of hits as a solo act to his name, entering the next phases of his vocation as a storyteller has grown stronger through the years, and more organic to who he is and what appeases him and the audience that continues to support his library of songs.

“I’ve tried various things for the last 10 years and I’ve realized that when I go into the studio with an intention and a completely solidified plan of ‘I’m going to write exactly this’, the song doesn’t always tend to come out to the quality I want it to come out because of the restraints and the box that I start the song in,” he shares on hitting creative marks he sets for himself. “Instead, I’ve kind of just let the stream of consciousness guide me and just do its thing and write down the words first and figure out the narrative after it’s written. and then I would trim and cut pieces that I don’t feel are relevant and I would attach things that I feel would help take it to the next level.”

With the evolved landscape of today’s consumption of music, though, eaJ approaches his artistry with an understanding that his journey is not limited to himself and what he creates but a symbiotic relationship with those who listen to him and wait for his next step.

He notes, “That’s the reason that I use phrases that people use in their everyday conversation that people can relate to very easily. I think for any professional songwriter who’s not just a home hobbyist and they’re trying to elevate their music and get more people to listen, I think it would be foolish to solely focus on what you like, and the kind of music that you like. I think there comes a point, being a professional musician and a songwriter, where you have to understand that ‘Oh, even if I like A, people like B. Maybe I could make C by putting them together.’  I think that’s when everyone’s creativity and the real battle for artistry comes.”

Tricky and elaborate, but freeing and self-revealing, his is a decade-old pursuit marked not just by experiments with his music and lyricism, but a conscious dialogue with his voice and sense of self that shaped his sound and his person now—jumping on a string of stage performances on his ongoing world tour, starting with the Philippines earlier this month and few more concert venues that dot the rest of Asia before making his way back to North America, leading to a set of performances with Imagine Dragons later on in the year.

“I’m actually kind of glad that I hadn’t been on tour before because I think I am still building on how to perform alone ‘cause I hadn’t done that for the entire time that I was in the K-Pop world. But now that I have a few shows under my belt as a solo act and now that I’m starting to get a feel on how to really make the best of an environment for a show, I think now is a great time.”

In the midst of the tour is a six-track EP of the same name, “when the rain stopped following me”, waiting in the wing, set to be released on September 20, featuring a compendium of earlier released tracks and a few additions.

It goes without saying that charting eaJ and his career reveals a sonic orbit that is filled with milestones and promises of an even greater road ahead. All of these said, his continuing education and this renewed state of self-awareness led us to the eaJ we are seeing now: booked, bold, and breaking through.